Ten years of Portland streetcars (actually, more like 63)

Portland Streetcar (image courtesy CityImage.net)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

It was the summer of 2001. The nation was still several weeks away from the terrorist attacks that would mark the beginning of a new era of fear, squashed civil liberties, and a deregulated economy booming but set up to bust. Movie adaptations of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings books were tops at the box office, and the music charts were ruled by now-forgotten bands like Staind, Shaggy and Creed. And Portland saw completion of the nation's first modern streetcar line, extending from Portland State University at the south edge of downtown, through the Pearl District to 23rd Avenue.

Of course this wasn't the first time streetcars traversed the Rose City streets. Between 1872 and about 1925, streetcar lines extended to 14 different neighborhoods. Then, a combination of increasing automobile ownership and collusion by automobile manufacturers (who bought up streetcar lines throughout America and then shut them down) saw streetcar tracks paved over and transit funds allocated instead to freeways and widened boulevards.

Some were skeptical of the streetcar from the start.  Factoring in platform stops and minor delays associated with mixed traffic operations, the average speed from one end of to the other is between seven and 12 miles per hour. The average speed of a person walking is three miles per hour. So if you pick up the walking pace just a bit, chances are you can be faster than the streetcar. What's more, streetcars usually go where buses already went, and bus lines are much cheaper than streetcars. What's more, although Portland has branded itself America's streetcar capitol, it's not as if people have given up their automobiles in droves. The streetcar seems to symbolize for some how Portland's central city is a kind of urban boutique while its outer neighborhoods and suburbs are more or less as automobile dominated as Anywheresville, USA.

At the same time, streetcars do something buses and highways don't: They act as a development tool, and a smart one. The streetcar was a major factor in the transformation of the Pearl District from a largely empty industrial zone and rail yards into a high-density neighborhood. As of 2008, private developers had invested $3.5 billion within two blocks of the original PSU to NW 23rd Avenue line alignment, including over 10,000 new housing units and 5.4 million square feet of office, retail and hotel construction. This represents about two-thirds of all development in the central city over that time period. These developments also utilized more of the allowed floor area ratio (FAR) than developments not near streetcar over 90 percent of its potential FAR compared to just over 40 percent for developments not near streetcar lines. Some of this can be explained by incentives to developers to build near the streetcar, but not all.

With one million new residents expected in the region by 2035, the streetcar has also been a way for the city to plan ahead in a way that minimizes traffic gridlock and greenhouse gas emmissions.

As Mayor Adams noted in a recent celebration of the streetcar's first 10 years, the transit line has created thousands of good-paying jobs, carried 28 million passengers, helped attract $4 billion in private investments and attracted 200 visiting delegations from other cities and regions.

I've long been fascinated in this psychological difference that exists between streetcars or other types of rail transit versus buses. Libertarians and conservatives have long ridiculed Portland's streetcars as an overpriced indulgence, in which we choose to move people in a fixed rail route vastly more expensive than buses that accomplish the same task more economically. Yet that pragmatic point of view just doesn't account for the different perceptions we have about rail, and those perceptions affect how and where we choose to live, work and play.

Consider a seemingly unrelated recent New York Times story about autistic children overrunning the city's transit museum.

"The link between trains and autism is well documented," writes the Times' Christine Haughney. "Autism refers to a spectrum of disorders that typically includes impairment in social interaction and sometimes includes stereotyped interests, like trains. People with autism have difficulty processing and making sense of the world, so they are drawn to predictable patterns, which, of course, trains run by. That explains why children with autism tend to be attracted more to subways, which travel on back-and-forth tracks, with little variability, than to planes, which move in more variable fashion."

In many cases, autistic kids follow bus schedules too, but ultimately trains win out in their imaginations by a considerable margin. I can't help but wonder if there is some connecting thread, or some larger public sentiment to be gleaned. Is it that we crave that same predictability that is associated with trains? Even if streetcars, unlike MAX light rail and regular freight or passenger trains, must often yield to traffic and are in fact part of street traffic, perhaps we still associate streetcars in our minds with transit that is above the fray. Regular automobile traffic offers individual control to drivers, the chance to speed up in hopes of advancing past other cars or to slow down and go with the flow. Even if streetcars are subject to the same limitations of traffic and roads as buses, we seem to view them as a saner alternative that is removed from the chaos of auto traffic.

Meanwhile, more streetcar lines are coming. First, there will be a line to Lake Oswego using mostly existing tracks from the Willamette Shore line. Although it has met with some controversy, with residents of the tony Dunthorpe expressing worry about the lines coming close to their multi-million-dollar enclaves, Lake Oswego is an ideal destination in that much of the walkable-community environment that streetcars are part of already exists here. Downtown Lake Oswego is more walkable than most any of its fellow suburbs. What it largely lacks is high-density housing. Having a streetcar line going there will enable developers to offer Lake Oswego condos as an alternative to the Pearl or South Waterfront, but just as well connected to the central city.

That said, extending rail transit to the suburbs is supposed to be the job of the MAX line, with the streetcar meant for central-city neighborhoods. It begs the question: Instead of having two separate rail lines with different names, purposes and identities, why not just call the whole system either MAX or the Portland Streetcar, and emphasize that rail transit within or going in or out of Portland is all the same? Yes, streetcar tracks and trains are differently sized than MAX. But they're both mass-transit urban rail lines. Shouldn't we be thinking of this as all one system?

A new streetcar line is also under construction along Martin Luther King Boulevard and Grand Avenue (which run parallel to each other). More than the Lake Oswego line, this will be where the streetcar has the most opportunity to act as a development tool. Along these streets, which pair to form Highway 99E, traffic moves relatively quickly and pedestrian ambiance is lacking. As is development. Both streets are littered with surface parking lots and suburban-style development. In the long run, if Portland is to keep growing in population without sprawling at its edges, we'll need high density housing along MLK and Grand. They are centrally located and within easy reach of both downtown and the Lloyd district, two areas full of employers. Instead of used furniture stores, a Salvation Army, a Burger King, this central spine of the east side could be home to thousands of people, who in turn would be patronizing local businesses and contributing to the tax base. If streetcars can lead smarter development of the MLK Boulevard area, they will - even with all the added cost versus buses - more than pay for themselves.

Looking ahead, federal funding for streetcars may be in jeopardy. After President Obama initially took office, he found considerable success jump-starting a wrecked post-Bush economy with a series of investments in jobs, home-buyer credits and mass transit. But after Obama committed most of his political capital to passing national health care in the initial two years of his presidency, public fears about big government helped usher in a new generation of reactionary Tea Party politicians into office, who now have siezed the federal agenda and forced the president to accept an austerity plan like the unsuccessful one underway in Britain that is leading to strikes, riots, and a downward cascading stock market. This means federal funding for streetcars and other mass transit projects, as well as even automobile-oriented projects like the Columbia Crossing bridge, may no longer be counted on. In some cases, this is the sensible move. The Columbia Crossing has become a billion-dollar boondoggle driven more by the highway-industrial complex than the needs of drivers. It arguably deserves a federal pass on funding. For streetcars, though, there is a pied-piper effect on the economy: spending on transit prompts private investment. If the right is correct that a healthy economy is the way to fill federal coffers rather than tax increases, we've got to spend finite dollars wisely in a manner that leverages other investment. And for that task, the streetcar has arrived right on time.

Comments

[Alexander Craghead]

There are of course political reasons why MAX and Streetcar are not one system. For one, streetcar is, as you point out, development driven -- or at least it as at the start. MAX is about moving mass quantities of people in a traditional Federal definition of mass transit. In fact early on TriMet officials such as Walsh were anti-streetcar as they saw it as competition for transit funding as well as being highly foreign to then current notions about what transit was and what it did.

Long term, however, as streetcar lines transition away from development driven and towards more of a transportation role, there is some logic to merging them with MAX under a TriMet umbrella. Metro, in the most recent RTP, suggested using streetcars as "branches" of MAX at further out points, such as Lombard in NoPo, either purely as a single track MAX extension or as a line that sees both local circulating streetcars and commuter/metropolitan service via MAX on the same tracks.

These, however, are merely concepts in a larger transportation plan; will they ever become reality? I suspect yes, eventually:once a streetcar is built, the developers get what they want, and have less incentive to fund and operate them. (This is not a new story: it's exactly what became of the first wave of streetcars, which were also all about real estate ventures.) At that point, it makes more sense for them to transition into being part of an integrated transit system, rather than maintaining a separate identity. But in my view this may be a decade or more out, and depends on if additional extensions ever become reality, or if Sam's Streetcar System Plan becomes just a footnote in history.

[R A Fontes]

The Lake Oswego streetcar extension is not a done deal. Three years ago, all seven Lake Oswego City Council members were project supporters; now there are just four. Opponents have high hopes in winning a majority in the November 2012 election. The main issues for Lake Oswegans concern local costs and difficulty of integrating the proposed high density development, particularly regarding traffic.

There are real concerns all along Highway 43 about the degradation of transit service that streetcar would bring. It would be slower, less convenient, and more costly to operate than bus, and some riders between Lake Oswego and Portland would lose service entirely.

Clackamas County is a member of the intergovernmental consortium which owns the right-of-way. In its draft resolution supporting the project and on behalf of concerns raised by West Linn, the County requires that corridor bus service be maintained and expanded. The reality that we need bus service if we want decent corridor transit, whether or not we have streetcar, belies a fundamental project claim.

Foothills development proponents are also backing away - at least to a degree - from the claim that streetcar is a necessity for its project. The party line is now that while streetcar would be more attractive to developers, viable development would still be possible without it, but possibly at a smaller scale.

[Jim Heuer]

The original electric streetcars which helped shape the Portland metro area actually served until a more recent date than you suggest in your post. The first Portland electric lines opened in 1889, just a year after the very first U.S. electric trolleys went into service in Richmond, Virginia (Although the first successful European systems had started a few years earlier). When Portland began switching from horse, steam, and cable power in its public transport, there was already a fairly extensive system -- which was quickly replaced by the much more cost effective and practical electric cars. Portland's network of streetcars and electric interurban services became one of the most extensive in the nation by the 1920s.

The last electric streetcars in that old system were discontinued in 1950: the last lines were the Willamette Heights, Council Crest, and 23rd Avenue cars. Contrary to popular assumptions that the riding public preferred modern buses, there was actually a strong protest movement attempting to force the transit company, to retain the electric cars. Then, as now, people preferred the more comfortable ride and predictable routing of the electric cars.

In the end, the daunting costs of replacing 60-year old electric distribution infrastructure, plus the economic incentives offered by the bus-building division of General Motors, induced the transit operators to switch to diesel buses -- and thereby accelerate the decline in ridership resulting from increasing automobile use. As with the streetcars, the longer haul interurban electric cars suffered from government neglect, declining ridership, and aging equipment, and they stopped operating in 1958.

So the preference of the riding public for electric streetcars versus buses is nothing new. Also not new is the greater flexibility of the diesel bus in the face of traffic congestion and street disruptions, in comparison with the rigid routing of the electric cars.

It is true that electric streetcars were promoted heavily by real estate developers in the last years of the 19th and early 20th Centuries, suggesting a parallel with today's development driven streetcar construction in Portland. Still, 2011 is not 1911, and it is not at all clear that the tremendous construction along the current streetcar route would not have happened at all in the absence of the streetcar line. We will soon see the effect of modern streetcar development on a neighborhood more distant from downtown and hardly on the cusp of a major building boom as the MLK/Grand Avenue line goes into service next year.

As one who generally favors more light rail and trolley transit where it makes economic sense, I find it hard to swallow the decision to press south to Lake Oswego with streetcar service. For all the reasons cited by the previous commenter, this route is highly problematic both in terms of distance, right of way, and projected operating speed. If a light-rail route could be constructed to Lake O., with its much higher operating speeds, the needs of commuters might be much better served -- but likely at a cost the community would never be willing to fund.

Much more practical would be streetcar routes extending into Northeast and Southeast Portland along routes already supporting heavy bus traffic, which have long established "streetcar suburb" layouts resulting from those streetcar routes of 50 years ago.

[Doug Kelso]

I'm very skeptical about the current proposal for the Lake Oswego Streetcar simply because it's too expensive and too slow. A streetcar could provide MAX-like service between downtown and Lake Oswego, but it would (probably) need to share MAX tracks from South Waterfront to downtown (which would require adaptations to either the vehicles or the MAX platforms -- Streetcars are narrower than MAX vehicles, and the gap would be wide enough to be unsafe) and run with only a few stations from South Waterfront to Lake Oswego.

As Brian points out, the streetcar is well-used as a development tool -- basically it's a pedestrian enhancement to get around the core two or three times as fast as walking. It could instead be used for commuter transit like MAX. But it can't (realistically) do both. The planned Lake Oswego line is designed like a development tool, which makes for very poor commuter transit. Developing it as an effective transit line would mean (most likely) making it a Tri-Met project and using a different vehicle than the current Portland Streetcar -- one that can share MAX tracks and platforms downtown, and still use Portland Streetcar tracks and platforms in South Waterfront.

Adding injury to insult, the Lake Oswego streetcar proposal would eliminate bus service on Macadam to pay for operations -- creating a longer, slower ride for commuters in that corridor. As planned, it's a very expensive lose-lose for almost everyone except a few developers in Johns Landing and Lake Oswego.

[Jim Heuer]

Relative to the comment that the current streetcar is a pedestrian enhancement to "get around the core two or three times as fast as walking"...

Alas, with the relative low frequencies of the current streetcar operations, my Pearl-dwelling friends report that for trips into downtown or even to PSU, it is faster to walk unless there is a streetcar within sight of the stop.

Every-5-minute frequencies may not be economically feasible today, but that kind of scheduling was what made the electric streetcar an essential part of early 20th Century urban transportation in the central core even in the early days of the automobile. The every-15-minute scheduling used today was used in historic times too, but only for streetcar transport from what were then outlying suburban areas like Mt. Tabor.